And then night before last I dreamt an MG fantasy adventure that takes place in the cloud-high canopy of a redwood forest world, where cherub-shaped fae men do…something… okay, so I was riding a huge eagle, as was the style at the time (<– hah. Grandpa Simpson.) and holding this fae and when I “used” him for his purpose, from his chest, his color changed (wings, body, crystal around his neck) until he was like shimmery, dark stone. Anyway, I held him in the crook of my arm (so clearly he wasn’t “used up”?) while I navigated the eagle to the inn where I was staying using words like “lilliput” for left… because, adorable. Anyway, when I got to the inn, I tried for the first time to see the earth floor through the clouds and the beauty of the forest and I finally caught a glimpse of the ground and of a pale brown trail through the expanse of auburn ground cover.

So no, they don’t usually yield stories that I’ll actually write. :)

But sometimes…. and because WHO NEEDS A REASON, LET THE DREAMS COME, I had another one today during my nap. And I thought. Um, that is kinda flawesome but it’s not a story, just a concept and I’m trying to get back to something else and everything. There’s sort of been a lot going on in my neck of the woods so …actually, that might explain the overwhelming deluge of amazing dreams. And you know how you tell someone something that you think might be kind of interesting and then their reaction makes you realize that this might be the coolest thing evar and how did you not see it? And just after telling my long-suffering CP, Stephanie, how I didn’t have a story to go with it and I’m so sorry, I went downstairs to get the laundry AND THE STORY WAS IN THE DRYER. I mean, I just assume it was. Because that’s where I found it. I looked around for its rightful owner but. ::shrug:: It’s mine now.

Oh and.

Sometimes I hate being right.

Get it together, girl! See what you’re doing in this picture? Bring that good love back, get rid of the bad wigs and thanks for dropping the ridiculous and horrible boyfriend-turned-fiance storyline but let’s hope it’s not too late to right the ship. The Good Wife turned it around when they realized they’d gone too far down the rabbit hole of a dynamic no one wanted to see so … I believe in you. I mean. I want to.

This, people, is why I sleep. Because my mind-brain is endlessly entertaining and cinematic. And sometimes I actually prefer not to lucid dream so that I can be caught up in a world of whimsy…well. Not usually whimsy but, you know.

So last night’s dream setting was an amalgamation of Old Montreal and North Wales. (Because my brain wants me to travel. We all want me to travel, I think.) Anywhoooo, I had friends. A rather big guy of a friend who could effortlessly swing me over the hood of a car parked in a crosswalk instead of making me walk around it. There were a couple of other people with us, generally jovial and the like. But in the back of my mind I was thinking about my sister, Jen-the-Twin, and how I had to study “acceptances” so I knew what to say.

See, in this world – for an undisclosed and yet completely understandable reason – at the end of childhood, we were dispersed around the world, sort of willy-nilly. Individually, without our family. Communication was spotty and yet somehow you were supposed to get to a point where you chose one person from your past with whom you’d like to be assigned to live. And I’d chosen my sister. So, like, everyone else, I was paying close attention to the people whose requests had been approved. The whole process involved standing in this very long line every time the woman – get this: a young Whoopi Goldberg – was available to make decisions. You got one shot, but you never knew when it was going to come. So you stood in this line, listening to other people make their cases. And the people who got approved always said a few of the same things. When asked what the other party said the last time they spoke, the person always answered, “You’re the one.” [Sidenote, because my brain is gorgeous: in a recent email, I said this to Jen-the-Twin, quoting Morgan from Tombstone.]

This other party was always referred to as the soulmate of the asker, the one person from their past they couldn’t live without. And then, like some sort of mystic, Whoopi would stand with her hand on their shoulder and either agree to their request or deny it. And the person would live with that decision for the rest of their lives. They never got a second chance.

When it was finally my day – because I was third in line somehow so I knew she’d get to me – it didn’t look good. Both the two women who were in line in front of me got approved. And for some reason, this didn’t bode well for my chances. By the by, this ordeal was taking place on a long, chartered bus this time? Because dreams. So the woman in front of me gets approved and the entire bus, including myself, just erupts into sighs and cooing, completely overjoyed to see someone who’ll soon be reunited with family.

So it’s my turn. The thing is I notice Whoopi has her own bags packed and with her. O..kay. So I’m ready to answer her questions. I’ve studied, I know all the right answers. I’m about to tell her who my soulmate is – in this world in which no other member of my family is who they are in real life, btw…and clearly I have no husband or son. Only Whoopi doesn’t ask me any question. She just starts the mystic part of the process as though to save time, but everyone watching – not to mention me! – knows that this won’t work. No matter what answer she gives, I haven’t announced my chosen party. And if she makes a decision – even though it’s based on no request – she’s used up my turn. But I can’t interrupt her. I’m just standing there, with all these people watching me sadly because they get it. And she’s totally oblivious, it seems, to her error.

Well, actually, she’s in a hurry. As soon as she’s done approving my reunion to no one, the bus stops and she debarks with her bags in hand. Now, finally, I say to heck with proper behavior and I chase her down the bus steps and onto the sidewalk as she hurries to her own transport. I’m yelling after her that she didn’t ask me who, that I never got to tell her where I wanted to go. She never turns around, just keeps hurrying away, bags in hand. I turn back and the bus driver, who for some reason is the German guy from My Last Day Without You, just looks at me, compassionately. So that’s when I buckle, collapsing on the steps and wailing. I mean, like, crying so hard I might not have any energy left in my body when it’s over. I think I’ve pulled myself together and try to stand, only to be overwhelmed by the fact that I.get.no.family. She stole my turn. There’s nothing I can do. I’ll never see Jen-the-Twin again. I’m alone, in this city, with “friends” who are all trying to get back to one or another member of their own family. So I just lay back down and cry my eyes out.

That is one sad bird.

And sooooooo. Yeah. The bus driver gets me to sit with him – because for some reason his seat is like a booth? Right. Dream logic. And while he drives, he tells me about Cleveland.

Robert. Downey. Jr. ….versus killer – and possibly genetically modified – Caribou. Which may or may not live there but what am I, National Geographic? (Now’s probably a good time for this disclaimer: any semblance of accuracy or sense is entirely unintentional and the result of a good memory of Christmas themed elementary school lessons.)

RDeej, armed only with his wit and a pocket knife, faces down the murderous herd on land and in what I can only assume are the icy waters of death. Which actually should’ve killed him. Or at least made it impossible for him to keep up the totally unnecessary chatter. (Caribou can’t talk.) He’ll learn just how sharp a snappy rejoinder must be….to survive.

Was my dream last night. Well, one of them.

I awoke at noon and informed the boys that it was basically miraculous that I was awake. Scratch that. It was probably really unhealthy. Since I went to bed after 8am. Now, if you don’t know me in real life or simply haven’t realized that you and I, we don’t share a sleep pattern – you’re like, “OMGosh, whyyyy?” Then I explain that – especially coming off a revision bender – my brain goes, hey…..

…..

Stay up with me.

But let’s skip that part for now and just talk about how some wiseguy replaced my brain with raw cotton.

^ That. Fillin’ up muh head skull.

But I’ve broken my covenant with sleep so. Here we are. Talkin’ about survival dreams. Which of course are the types of dreams one has when they’re just on the brink of brain death. And in those sleep-to-live instances – which I’m beginning to think are my favorite kinds of sleeping moments – I am apparently really preachy. Because jump back to the dream before RDJ and the reindeer with hooves that looked a lot like driftwood – which was a lot bit grosser looking than it sounds – and there I am, chatting with the mother of a toddler and for some reason, I was aggressively telling this not-even-walking-right-yet little girl that it was because of her Latina heritage that she would be a master storyteller. Isabel Allende came up. Because a passionate argument should only ever have one example.

…

But I’m really starting to think people would respond to that Robert Downey Jr makin’ his way in the tundra story.

So anyway, in a wonderful turn of events, the hard copy revising of one project re-stimulated the actual composing of the wip, which I heart. (Both the wip and the progression from revising to writing.) Having been quite distracted with post-writing responsibilities, how wondersplendent.

And yet I wonder. It’s a novella – at least I believe it is, as in it always had been? – yet I feel it broadening in its scope to a bigger picture of society in a way that I don’t often find suitable for novellas.

….

Well, say something! Or FINE, just listen. Why can’t every project happen like Keepsake? I’m honestly enjoying this still untitled project and all the elements (incl the society that’s horning in) but… I’m not entirely sure what’s going on. And no, that’s not always an exciting whirlwind of genius. (People think, “I don’t know what’s going on” inevitably translates to “I am making a masterpiece”… it does not.) I legit am not sure. About things.

And so perhaps that’s why my sleep brain – adulterous gentlewoman that she is – tried to inspire me last night? She dreamed (my sleep brain, who is apparently a separate entity) that I wrote a new story. (Not sure what format but whatever.) It was about…. a dying woman helping her husband find his next wife.

Get it together, sleep brain.

In the dream, it was like GEEEEEEEEEENIUUUUUUUUUUUUUS and full and witty! And then I woke up and not only is that not as robust as I clearly found it in the dream, it’s like borderline ridiculous. Who wants to write about a husband who is so afraid of being alone that his DYING wife takes it upon herself in her final days to find him a replacement. It just screams, we were meant for each other. Til death do us part. But just.

So if for some reason that resonates with you, feel free to write what couldn’t possibly be longer than a short story about it. Or a rom-com. Or a black comedy. You know what, maybe this is a better idea than I thought. Maybe I should just write a super short scene like I did when I had that boy Buffy story-dream? Hm. We shall see.

You know how I dream. So I routinely have to sit with daylight for a while before the emotional resin wears off and I can conclusively say what is real and what was part of the dream. Not that I really thought that kindly old lady had killed my brother, but that something I experienced internally in the dream was trying to make a break for it and escape with me back into consciousness. (It usually works. Half the day is gone before I realize I have no reason to be so ____.)

No, I’m not going to regale you with a new dream – mostly because it was about changing CDs and Chris Martin singing a version of a BarlowGirl’s song – oh and then there was a cassette and I said, what would I even do with these now? But I’m worried – perhaps as a means of procrastination – whether or not last night’s epiphany is similar to dreamland runoff. Or like those times I totally plan out what I’m going to wear the next day only for the morning to give my safe-beneath-the-covers exuberance major side-eye and remind me why I don’t wear heels in this city. That and how much should you trust a revelation that came during bouts of congestion-induced sleep apnea? (I know, I know – it’s like asking how many licks to the center of a tootsie roll pop. Who can know such things.)

Ready To Take On The City In Heels (Before I Wake Up)

As revelations go, this is… sort of an undertaking. For some reason I’m hesitant to write it down – because here I only write down the *most* relevant, important and fact-checked nuggets of ancient wisdom – but it also made my brain go a million miles down the “I am not and never intend to be of the mind to self-publish fiction but for those of you who are, do stories like this make you hesitate at all?!” Because let’s say for instance that you wrote a novel and then you wrote another one and then you wrote a shorter one. The first one was, let’s say, two genres and the next one was just one of them and the shorter one was the other. And just as you were finishing the other, you realized you could do the first one better. But let’s say it’d been a year since you started sending the novel out and after a lot of attention, you got fed up (the attention confirming your brilliance, the snail’s pace making you irrational) and self-published it. A year and two books later, you might have done it better is all.

We must always keep our eyes open. Sensitive to the beauty and life all around us. For when you least expect it, you will be enjoying hot fries at McDonalds around lunchtime, surrounded by the people you love, and through the window you will see a man lean down to ask a question of one of the cabbie’s in a long string of taxis parked outside. Said man will somehow drop his (thankfully closed) beverage through the window – which is pretty impressive based on how very little the cabbie deigned to open it – and then said man will apologetically reach his hand into the window after said beverage, at which point the cabbie will become alarmed and thrust both his own hands at the sliver of an opening and emphatically insist that he will retrieve the beverage from his own lap. And this scene will be really funny for some reason, particularly because it was without audio.

Just celebrate the little things is what I’m saying.

In other news (meaning, I wrote the above like two hours ago and now I have returned and you are none the wiser) – I read the news, took a nap and dreamt I was in Amish country. Thankfully, my beard went unscathed.

Speaking of which, you know that feeling? When you just make the right decision? I’d just gotten home and offered to accompany the husband back out, when I had a split second of wisdom. Don’t go, my brain said. We need a nap. But I started putting my shoes on anyway, because … well, because I’m an idiot. After some breakdown indicators that apparently did not go unnoticed, my husband suggested I take a nap and went about his merry way. Two minutes later, as I started toward nonsensical dreams about being a compassionate investigative reporter who is drawn to the Amish way of life, I just had the wonderful feeling. Like I’d dodged a public breakdown on the subway. Really makes ya think.

So, you know those dreams of mine. (Yes, you do.) There was one from this summer that I had to actually write down; this scene is drawn from the story of the dream, it is not the dream itself. I wrote it down while we drove back from Wisconsin in June and I figured, it’s not growing (at least not that I know or plan at present) so why not just let you see it?

***

“Are you sure you wanna do this?” He slid the smooth stone across the blade sending all too familiar flashes of orange light into the space between them.

“Something different about this time and the millions before?” The other boy’s eyes were the only indication of interest; the rest of his body kept at work. Travis had seen the phenomenon enough times to know his friend was in fact paying attention.

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Because if you know some other Sentinel, I’ve got a raid scheduled in Azeroth.”

“Paris.” Travis tossed the throwing knife he’d been sharpening onto the pile between his feet before stalking to the table and yanking the crossbow from its surface.

This wasn’t the time, which meant it was precisely when Paris’ rapier wit kicked in. Why Travis still let his concern show was the real mystery. All it proved was that Paris was rightly chosen as Sentinel and that Travis wasn’t born with the confidence to enjoy an mmorpg on the same day he vowed to seal the threshold.

“You didn’t schedule a raid for today.” It was as close as he would come to salvaging it.

“No, but I could rustle one up.”

“Can you just answer a question for once? Pretty sure I’ve earned it.”

He shouldn’t have phrased it that way. They were friends. Saying he’d earned something made him sound like just another of Paris’ subjects.

“Can you stop asking the same question? Yes, I’m sure. I’m so sure that I already accepted their acceptance. And applied for student loans and housing and gave my notice at the car wash.” Paris’ eyebrow leapt up at the close of his statement. It simultaneously demanded whether his friend was satisfied and accused his friend of being unreasonable.

“Well, like you said, I don’t know any other Sentinels. So excuse me if I’m slightly concerned about what’s gonna happen to my hometown come fall while you’re off playing university.”

It may well be his last chance to talk some sense into his friend – no certainty the day would go to plan – and Travis couldn’t get his foot out of his mouth. “That’s not what this is about,” he backpedaled.

“Oh, it is.”

His balled fist was drawn chest high before Travis forced himself to stop. That was a fight he’d never win, even if he started with a sucker punch. Having his back turned wouldn’t be enough; Paris would have to have his arms broken and at least one eyeball removed before Travis had a chance. But time was running out. If his best friend couldn’t make Paris stay, nothing would.

The ceiling rained down a curtain of dust and sheetrock before the boys registered the booming sound. Outside, a symphony of car alarms competed with the very few screams.

Travis was already offering the crossbow when Paris finally turned around, but the boy rolled his shoulders forward twice before accepting it. With a grin, he trotted out of the room, his friend watching the white debris leap away from his body as he went.

“Time’s up.”

***

Very short and, again, not an exact replica of the dream, but I liked the storyline. (Also, yay for WoW references!) ^.^

Ezra: “I have had a dream that continued. It started out as the dream from the last night and then continued past all the things that already happened.”

Me: “That is seriously awesome.”

Ezra: “It was a nightmare.”

Me: “Whoops.”

But seriously, at this point, he at least understands that he and I are not the norm when it comes to dreaming, recollection and lucidity. (Of course, I say this but I secretly still believe everyone experiences things the same way I do.)

This is a good time to mention that you might find the rest of this creepy. I don’t. But I’m me. You’ve been sort of warned?

Lately, my dreams have been…I don’t even really know how to describe them. They’re always vivid and there’s always several but there’s just been something different. For one thing, they seem to have decided that high concept plot is the way to go. O_o Whereas before, I’d have wonderful dreams that meander and may be more about setting than anything, they’ve lately been much more succinct. I even had one over the summer (which I may have mentioned) that I simply had to write down, in the event that it’s actually a short story, novella or novel. It certainly seemed that way. I wasn’t in this one, before you start to call me Narcy…which I’m not denying but as yet, I don’t write myself into my work. As yet.

One from night before last – because to be honest, last night’s weren’t too exciting by comparison – involved a house at the bowl of a cul-de-sac. Two houses, I guess. The set-up was quite familiar, but then, it was a cul-de-sac and I grew up in Sacramento. I don’t know what was drawing me or anyone else to huddle around the house – think of it as a childhood afternoon where you’re just sort of congregating/playing in front of a neighborhood home – but what became clear was that we needed to run before the man came. I don’t know if he was coming home or was already in the house – and why we hadn’t been concerned before – but I took off into the next door neighbor’s driveway. In the open garage, there were already people hiding and there was a car under a white tarp. I climbed under the car, which almost immediately became something I could lift and maneuver over myself. (And as usually happens, I was suddenly charged with my son’s protection, too – nevermind that he hadn’t been in the dream nor had I been married?)

So I’m trying to make sure the “car”/tarp is on top of us without my legs protruding from the tarp – which was a problem for some reason – and I realize that if the man comes, trying to get myself and Ezra from beneath this thing with time and finesse enough to escape him is going to be a feat. So out we come, hunching over and dashing alongside the partitioning, manicured bush. While we are escaping down the street, I look back to see a guy like Josh (you know how that goes) standing in the bad guy’s driveway. Over his shoulder, I see the bad guy. A moment later, they’re both gone.

Only now that we’ve turned the corner and are rushing up steps to knock on doors, we’re all together. The real Josh and me and Ez. They’re narrow little porches with awnings and it reminds me of something out of Far From Heaven. Finally, a woman answers a door and we come rushing in. Not wanting to tell her the truth as to why we need to hang out in her home, I end up suggesting that we impose elsewhere, to which she drops her suspicions and offers to at least make us something to eat first. Relieved that we won’t be back on the street where the man is inexplicably hunting, I relax into the couch. Josh has perhaps gone to the powder room. At any rate, he’s down the hall when it goes weird.

At her prompting, I introduce myself. Because it’s 1950-something and this is apparently the neighborhood where I grew up, the woman knows my family name (and also, it’s not my family name which is when I realize I’m a fictitious character). Smiling, she motions toward the couch on which I’m sitting and says, easy as you please, that my brother died on that couch. Pieces of him, his hair maybe, is probably still on it somewhere. She motions to the necklace I’m wearing – which is a strange pendant that almost reminds me of an old bottle cap remover – and there’s some connection between it and my brother. Thankfully, Josh has overheard the strangeness and begins looking around the bathroom for something to subdue the woman with, but I’ve already assumed that she couldn’t have harmed my brother on her own so there must be a man who’s likely to return home from work soon. I don’t let these things play out in dreams where my child is present so, instead of waiting to see how we handle the woman and where we go next for shelter in our obviously helter-skelter neighborhood, I opened my eyes (in real life) and called the whole thing off.

Sooo, everyone’s familiar with hypnagogic hallucinations, yes? Yeees. The downside of lucid dreaming is … well all the other stuff that can happen in the same phase of “sleeping”. Like sleep paralysis. Or – as I mentioned – hallucinations. It’s wundebar, believe me. And having head congestion makes those last two pretty much a sure thing for me. In my opinion, no matter how much “sleep” you get during what was for me a stretch of this phenomena, you don’t really feel rested. Of course, it’s not deep sleep and that may be why this is, but also, it brews paranoia about going to sleep that results in muscle tension (again, for me) and knots in my back. #YAY

So anywhom. That was my last week. And this weekend. Splendid, I know. And after I realized what the NECESSARY is for Avrilis’ sequel, I was really hoping to get back to the actual writing. But wow, writing a second book is faaaar more slowgoing. If there weren’t a reason for a sequel, I would not be into it. The world required more, but I wasn’t exactly sure what the more was. The character still needed something, even if it’s turning out she…really can’t have what she needs…because it would require not being from the world she’s from. (Don’t you hate when that happens.) Now that I know what the world needs – although of course not everyone (the little imaginary people who reside therein) would agree – I want to PowerSauce it like the first one! But…that whole A side/B side. Which you’ll recall or read for the first time.

And then, because I had to go through a few posts to find that one and wanted to share this one, too. (This one! This one!) I seriously have to go through old posts periodically and repost them. Because I’m way more narcissistic than you gave me credit for.

In conclusion, we finally got an answer as to why my son watches the special features of every DVD he owns or rents from church. Apparently, he likes to watch parts about how they’re written and made because he maybe wants to make a movie one day. That’s what you call, hop into my mouth…if you want…to live.

I have no idea what is up but last night I had about four insanely intense dreams. Sérieusement. Maybe it was because we actually slept with the heater on? I kept waking up after each dream. The next to last one had my boys and I living in an apartment in what appeared to be the 18th arrondisement, though there were no recognizable landmarks – but you know how your brain just decides these things. Anyway, it was absolutely beautiful and I do remember we were hurrying home and up our wrought iron staircase – but I don’t remember the danger in that dream. Except that I “coughed” up something granular, purple and bulbous – if you can even imagine what that would look like. Unfortunately, I can remember the taste and the sound of it forcing my mouth open. Yum

But the last dream I had was the most epic. It started with us already being in the underground city. Except we were above ground. O_O Right. The point is that the grocery store, the theater or church sanctuary, etc were all connected and we never had to go upstairs.

Josh and I and Ez were in the grocery store when the world started spinning, horribly. Ezra was younger by a bit – and incrementally became younger throughout the dream – and was laughing.

At first, I didn’t want him to be laughing because if and when he realized the severity of what was happening, I thought the sound of his laughter becoming screams would be too disturbing. Seriously, that was my internal thought. I was holding him tightly to me and sliding down aisles while other people maintained their footing – of course I was holding a child and they weren’t – and we passed into the canned food sections. I was yelling for people to grab us and help me away from things would seriously hurt my child if they started falling. I don’t remember anyone helping us, though they stared wide-eyed, and then I somehow got myself turned around.

Eventually, the hardest tremors ceased and we knew – not that anyone said it – that there was no way out of any of the tunnels. They were completely blockaded with rubble and we – constituting a small city – were trapped except for the roof access that was connected to the grocery store.

People start to behave strangely when they figure out that they’re trapped, the world is falling apart outside and they’re more than likely going to die where they are. Some woman decided to start fires to separate the grocery store into neighborhoods – right! – and keep people away from her area. It seemed like people were looking to me, so at this point everyone in the underground knew who I was and expected me to solve problems. Nice.

The freezer sections, the little islands that run through the grocery store, had stopped working long ago and were filled with water… they also served as evidence that the floors beneath us were now submerged in freezing water from the snow storm that might have been responsible for everything that was happening and from the pipes bursting in the subway, etc. So I’m struggling to reach through this freezing water to get to things that can be used as buckets to transport it to the still small fires. At one point, I ask the woman next to me – who is holding a child younger than now toddler Ezra – to hold him while I put out these fires.

I distinctly remember that I found the matches being used and threw them all on the fire to keep people from going off and making new fires while I was putting these out. Coulda probably threw them into the freezer islands, but I didn’t. We have to stand by our decisions, people.

So the woman is holding my baby and hers – though she seems too old to have a baby, to be honest – and I don’t really know why I couldn’t have given him to Josh… he’s around, but I’m not sure where. Anyway, so I’m getting the fire out and up some industrial looking steps and out the glass ceiling/door, I see a helicopter landing on the roof. Everyone starts rushing in that direction and I know they only have room for the small children. The woman who is holding Ezra and her own child is being ushered to the doors and I’m relieved.

When I get the fire out, I head up the stairs to see if I’m too late to say goodbye to Ezra. Only I find him sitting on the roof and the gurneys I saw before have been put away and the helicopter is starting to lift. I pick him up – and now he’s a few months old – and am completely overwhelmed. I know my face must have looked like a beaten hound dog. My heart is completely broken. (I can honestly recall the feeling right now.) The woman who was holding him, steps away from the lifting helicopter and completely without remorse says to me, “I didn’t know if they’d let me give two babies.”

I don’t say anything to her, just hold Ezra to my chest as I head out of the cold and back down the stairs into the chaotic underground. I’m staring straight head, holding my now baby Ezra close to me. I am dreading finding Joshua, telling him Ezra is stuck down here with us. That the helicopter left him. And everyone is turning to watch me, all of the people trapped with us. They are stopping what they’re doing and this huge place falls silent while I descend the steps in shock, protectively holding a baby I know I can’t protect from what apparently is going to be the end of life on Earth.